Color Detector is an advanced colour picker tool. It allows the user to pick a colour from the screen or a palette and receive RGB, HEX, HTML & Long values. You can also enter these values to the software and it will display the colour to you.

Note: This software requires the Visual Basic 6 Runtimes. These are installed on Windows ME and Windows XP machines. If you are running Win95/98 or NT4 download the runtime first from Microsoft.

PalmerSoft's Color Detector V2.0

Color Detector was originally written as a personal project to assist Greg Palmer with web site design. However over the last couple of years so many people have downloaded it, he thought he should give it a face lift.

Greg has now totally rewritten the software from scratch and tried to make it as user friendly as possible. If you have any suggestions on how to improve the software please feel free to contact him at http://www.palmersoft.co.uk/main.asp?content=contact

How To Use Color Detector

The software is relatively straight forward to use as you will see below.

[+] Click to Enlarge

Screenshot Of Color Detector Ver 2.0

1) Selecting a Colour from the Palette

To select any color from either of the palettes you simply left click on the desired colour. Alternatively you can hold down the left mouse button and move the cursor around, this will automatically change the main colour as you move the mouse.

2) Selecting a Colour from the Screen

In the previous version of Color Detector you simply moved your mouse around the screen and pressed a button to capture that colour. However this caused some problems. To counter this I have added a screen capture facility to the software. While Colour Detector is active you simply press Ctrl & C to capture the current screen, or use the menu command SCREEN > CAPTURE SCREEN.

This will initiate the screen capture, Color Detector will minimise, take the screen shot and then reappear with an window to the right of the software.

Now you can simply use the same left mouse procedure as with the palette colour selection to pick a colour from the screen.

NB - If at any time you wish to hide the screen capture window, you can do this by simply clicking on SCREEN > HIDE CAPTURED IMAGE.

3) Converting Colour Codes

The software can convert HEX, RGB, HTML & Long colour codes to any of the other codes. Simply type the code into the Colour Code box, select the corresponding colour code type and then click the Colour button. This will then display the colour and the 4 different colour codes next to it. From here you can then copy the required code to the clipboard as discussed below.

4) Copying Colour Codes to Clipboard

Once you have picked a colour by any of the possible methods, you can then copy the relevant colour code to the clipboard. You do this by simply clicking on the colour code that you require.

5) Saving/Retrieving Favourites

There are 14 favourites blocks that you can use to save colours that you use regularly. Once you have the colour that you wish to save as a favourite selected you simply left click on one of the 14 favourites squares and that colour will then be saved. When you exit the software these colours are saved and will be automatically retrieved when you open the software next time. If you wish to view the colour codes for one of your saved colours, right click on it and it will be loaded to the main colour panel.

6) Clearing Favourite Colours

If you wish to delete all existing favourite colours you can do so by clicking on OPTIONS > CLEAR CUSTOM COLOURS

Grab this great utility here: Color Detector v2.0

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This page was last updated 24th April 2005

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A page about the color detector application by greg palmer